Do you happen to know of a maiden in need Of a sweeetheart? Here's one who is anxious to pleadIt's a shame that a handsome young fellow like meShould be left while the nightingale sings in the tree.It's a shame that a handsome young fellow like meShould be left while the nightingale sings in the tree.

In the wood and the meadow, beneath the bright moon,Every lad with his lass makes the most of the June.The world's gone a-wooing, excepting of me,While the nightingale sings to his mate in the tree.The world's gone a-wooing, excepting of me,While the nightingale sings to his mate in the tree.

The time, it is short; there is none I can spareFor the nightingale's song will soon die in the air.Don't you think, dearest Phyllis, you'd better agreeTo make love while the nightingale sings in the tree?Don't you think, dearest Phyllis, you'd better agreeTo make love while the nightingale sings in the tree?

I have sung it for years also, but I was certain it had come to me from the playing of Richard Dyer Bennett. Seems unlikely I could confuse those two voices!! LOL But,m I seem to recall having been wrong about something once, so anything' s possible...

Don't really see that as drift, Sinsull, Interesting to know that there are still people who use such songs for the purpose for which they were intended. Sorry about the outcome, though, I guess a sick rat is still a rat.

No relation to "Soldier and the Lady" / "One Morning in May" / "Nightingale," despite the citations at the top of the thread!

It is a composed popular song. It would be nice to know its origin. Can anyone confirm it's by Bob Davenport? If not, it may be by one of Ives' prolific New York art community friends, or even by Ives himself.

Very touching song! I, too, went through a period of adolescent angst when this song was my calling card to love. Ah! flaming youth! :-)

Although the dictionaries, and even Microsoft's spellchecker, insist that the spelling is troubadour, I often find it spelled troubador on the Internet. There is even a Burl Ives album called "Troubador" and you can see the album cover here.

Back in the days when an "album" consisted of several 78-rpm records sold as a set, there was a set of 4 called "The Return of the Wayfaring Stranger" by Burl Ives (Columbia C-186), issued in 1949. The individual records were were: Columbia 38482 LITTLE MOHEE b/w ON SPRINGFIELD MOUNTAIN Columbia Columbia 38483 LORD RANDALL b/w TROUBADOR (sic) SONG Columbia 38484 COLORADO TRAIL & ROVING GAMBLER b/w BONNIE WEE LASSIE Columbia 38485 DIVIL AND THE FARMER b/w JOHN HARDY

The above information is from Billboard Magazine and the Online 78-rpm Discography Project.

I was a tiny child when this album came out, making me a folk fanatic when there was so little to listen to other than c & w. My brother owned a precious copy and showed my very carefully how to handle a prize like a good l.p. I remember On Springfield Mt. word for word to this day while it's been decades ago. Is it available in any other format? if so where?

Collectables has reissued the Columbia albums on CD - available from any retail source. There is a 4CD set on JASMINE, a UK company, but available stateside - relatively inexpensive, and another 4-CD set of Ives radio show from Echo. PM if you need links...

I thought this song was on an LP Burl Ives album I had in college, called "Wayfaring Stranger," but this is the tracklist from that album: 1 Wee Cooper o' Fife # 2 Riddle Song 3 Tam Pierce 4 Peter Gray 5 Darlin' Cory # 6 Leather-Winged Bat 7 Cotton-Eyed Joe 8 Sweet Betsy From Pike # 9 On Top Of Old Smokey # 10 I Know Where I'm Going # 11 I Know My Love 12 Cowboy's Lament #

So I'm thinking it was a cover by someone else - The Limeliters? Kingston Trio? - that was my first exposure to the song. I guess it could have been another Ives recording, but I don't think I had any others.

Funny coincidence: I hadn't thought about this song in months, maybe years. Then today I was doing room to room music at a convalescent home and one woman, whose name she told me is Phyllis, asked me to pick a song to sing for her. So I did this song for her. She'd never heard it but liked it a lot. Then I come home and open the Mudcat forum and here's a thread about that very same song!

My unabridged dictionary says that 'troubador' is a variant of 'troubadour.'

And it also says that 'troubabour' is derived from the Provencal word 'trobador,' which means to compose in verse.

So it looks to me like Burl's spelling is not only acceptable, it's closer to the original spelling from Provence, the home of the troubadors. ======= Genie: nice coincidence about Phyllis. Or was it not coincidence but a form of happy magic?

Technology triumphs! I recently bought a phone that records sound, so I sang two verses of this into it, converted it from the narrow band .amr format with a piece of weird software to MP3, then uploaded it to my Comcast storage folder.

I have not tried to sing this for years, and my voice shows it, but you can get the tune from it.

Yeah, Ian, I don't think I ever had that LP. It was probably Burl's version of the song that I heard but I'm not sure where. Could have been a record belonging to a friend. Anyway I liked the song from the start.

On my older 'puter I could use Finale NotePad to make MIDI files but I DK how to do that with my new and improved Mac with iMovie, iTunes and Garage Band. (OK Garage Band could do it if I had a MIDI interface, but without that it's kind of tedious.)

My googling for this song has just reminded me that The Smothers Brothers also sang - well, that and spoofed - The Troubadour Song on their TV show in the '60s and it's one an album of routines from that show.

Amos... it is on The Wayfaring Stranger album by Burl...(one of my oldest LPs)

And on Dyer-Bennet 10- 1962, there is a song called "The Unfortunate Troubador", which he says he wrote about 1940. It is not the same song at all. If Dyer-Bennet did it, it's not on any of the 8-9 LPs I have.

Amos does sing the Troubadour Song that Burl Ives recorded. I've heard him do it.

In fact, I think maybe it was in the Peace Cabin at the 2008 Getaway.

And, BTW, WTF is going on with the Mudcat software? This is about the 4th time in as many days that I've posted something, seen it go through (i.e., show up), and then a bit later have it seem to have vanished into thin air. Weird.

I recall hearing a recording of Burl Ives singing it back when records were on stone tablets. I learned it from The New Song Fest, compiled by Dick and Beth Best, along about 1955 or so. No program notes, but music and words of all kinds of good songs. Lots of folk songs, spirituals, camp songs, odds and ends.

Obviously not a genuine Troubadour song (11th and 12th centuries). But then, Rudy Vallee used to bill himself as "The Vagabond Troubadour" which, of course, he was not.

Google Books says this song is on Page 148 of Volume 27 of English Dance and Song - anybody have that volume? Can you tell us what the article says about the song and its origins? I think we need to go a bit farther before we've found the origins of this song. So far, the the buck stops with the Burl Ives recording and Song Fest.

Jim Dixon referred to this song being published in English Dance & Song. It was in the October 1965 issue, where the notes state: "Reprinted from the New Song Fest, first published by Crown Publishers Inc, New York in 1937, by kind permission of Richard L. Best. Richard Best adds: "I learned the song from a student, and have no idea where he found it. I had heard it before, and I suspect that he found it in a collection. If you could find a more authoritative source you might get closer to some original."

Thanks, Derek. Our hope for a revelation from English Dance & Song turned out to be just a loop back to Song Fest. I found the song only in the 1955 edition of Song Fest, not in earlier editions. I did not see the explanation from Richard Best - maybe that wasn't published in the Song Fest book. So, we're still in a puzzlement. It's a very clever song, but my guess is that it's modern. -Joe-

------------ Thread closed due to heavy spamming. Contact Joe Offer if you need it reopened.---------------------

Here's a message from Claire Bear. She asked me to post it because the thread was closed by Spam. I'll probably have to close it again, but I'll leave the thread open for a day or two for responses. -Joe- Claire's message:

Hi Joe,

The thread about this song is closed, but I have some source information to add so, because the message on the thread says to contact you, I thought I'd just send it to you and let you add it without opening the thread, if your magic extends to that functionality.

I happened to be researching "Troubador Song" this morning, because my sister Frieda is coming to the Getaway with me and she wants us to sing it with me at one of the evening concerts.

I found that its composer is Louis Pippa, and that it comes from the play The Dreaming Of Aloysius (1928), according to http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/t/troubadoursong.shtml. (This is one of those annoying lyrics sites that loads spam, by the way.)

My sister, who's a better researcher than I (a librarian, so she has better resources, and retired, so she has more time), found a children's play/ebook by that name dated 2002 and written by Louis Lippa (not Pippa).

It has snippets of songs in it -- not The Troubadour Song (at least in the part that's available as a sample), but many others. It does make me question the information I found.

That would explain why I haven't found any reference to "Louis Pippa" anywhere other than the two sites referenced above, though I wonder where the 1928 came from, in that case...

The lyricsplayground attribution is faulty. Lippa was born in 1927; 'nuff said. This song and "Big Rock Candy Mountain" are just some songs featured in Lippa's 2002 play.

The Naxos Ives compilation CD Troubador lists the available attributions for songs, apparently from the original releases. In every case, the attribution is "traditional", but in a few cases, Ives is additionally credited with arrangement. Consequently, I believe Ives thought of it as a traditional song, or at least was unaware of its provenance.

There is also this version, which may be a relatively modern merger of the Ives song with "The Soldier and the Maid", or may in fact be "traditional":

THE NIGHTINGALE

As I was out walking one morning in May, I spied a young couple so fondly did play, One was a fair maid and her beauty shone clear, And the other was a soldier and a bold grenadier.

And they kissed so sweet and comforting as they clung to each other They went arm in arm along the road like sister and brother They went arm in arm along the road til they came to a stream And they both sat down together love to hear the nightingale sing..

Then out of his knapsack he took a fine fiddle And he played her such a merry tune as you ever did hear And he played her such a merry tune that the valleys did ring "Hark, hark," cried the fair maid, "Hear the nightingale sing!"

"Oh, soldier, oh soldier, will you marry me?" Oh, no, pretty lady, however can that be. For I've me own wife at home in me own country, Two wives and the army's too many for me!

In the woods and the meadows beneath the bright moon, Every lad with his lass makes the most of the June, It's a shame that a handsome, young fellow like me, Should be left, while the nightingale sings in the tree!"

"Oh, I'm off to India for seven long years Drinking wine and strong whisky instead of small beer And if ever I return it will be in the spring And we'll both sit down together love to hear the nightingale sing."

The clip notes claim there are many versions, going back at least 400 years, but that may presume this particular song is indeed a variant of "The Soldier and the Maid"/"Hear the Nightingale Sing", which I don't think has been established. There is an old but unrelated song, "The Nightingale", which is often encountered in broadsides and collections; this, combined with the Ives title, may mislead those doing hasty research in regard to the song's actual age. But I find myself now leaning toward a "folk" provenance at least.

To be clear I was referring to the original song this thread is about "Do you happen etc..." above but on digging out my vinyl copy of "Fifty Stone of Loveliness" by the Yetties I asee they include the other two popular Nightingale songs "My Sweetheart come along etc....." and "They kissed so sweet and comforting etc.........." on the LP but not the one I thought I recalled.

Digging further into the grey matter of memories I am now sure that my memory of "Do you happen etc..." comes from the singing of Dave Cooper one of organisers of the Phoebus Awakes Folk Club in Catford rather than the Yetties way back

Just rechecked the Richard Dyer-Bennet discography in Paul O. Jenkins fine biography of Richard Dyer-Bennet: The Last Minstrel and there is no sign that he ever recorded "The Troubadour."

Dyer-Bennet did compose "The Unfortunate Troubadour" in 1940, noting that the story was not based on personal experience.

Dyer-Bennet and Ives did collaborate in the 1940s on Burl's New York radio show entitled The Wayfaring Stranger, with Ives leading American folksongs derived from British folksongs and Dyer-Bennet leading the British versions.